


Too Small a Word

by moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Love Like Yours 2020 [3]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: Reyja and Julian make a plan... and express their true feelings for each other.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Character(s)
Series: Love Like Yours 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753846
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Too Small a Word

**Author's Note:**

> For the Love Like Yours prompt "Say It Like You Mean It"

Snow crunches underfoot. I haven't heard that sound in a long time, but it stirs a strange sort of nostalgia in me, like an echo of a song I used to know by heart and have since forgotten. It feels right to be following the tug of my magic into this crystalline whiteness. Surely, like the Star said, we'll find my gateway somewhere among these tall pines, cushioned by snowdrifts and dripping with ice.

Her words lay heavily on me, though. Of course I understand that the Devil won't simply let me and Julian return to our bodies like nothing happened, but the thought of facing him terrifies me. He's powerful, ancient, immortal, an entity constructed of ideas the same way I'm made of flesh and bone. No matter how much time we spend in a gateway, I can't imagine mustering enough strength to stand against him. Besides, isn't he just as worthy of his place in the Arcana as any of the others? His ambition is certainly overstepping its bounds, and that's hurting people, but to remove him from the equation entirely would throw it all out of balance. If Asra taught me anything, it was to look for the complexities in whatever I face, to pick out the individual threads of the tapestry rather than seeing solid cloth.

But I never expected a final exam like this.

"Are you alright, darling?"

Julian's voice startles me. I realize as I emerge from the depths of my thoughts that we've stopped walking; the trees around us stretch up, up, up, blending into a black-green shadow far overhead, yet light illuminates our path as though we traverse a field instead of a forest.

"Oh, sorry," I answer, shaking my head to bring myself back. "Just thinking."

He grimaces. "Yes. Me too. There's, ah… a lot to think about, isn't there?"

Poor Julian. He didn't sign up for any of this. Magic is new to him, just recategorized into "maybe okay" from its status as "definitely bad." "Are _you_ alright?"

"Me? Oh, don't worry about me. In any case, I asked first."

But I am worried about him. He wouldn't be here if it weren't for me. I chew my lip, trying to think of something to say.

"I'm… I don't know." A tremble, unrelated to the cold, stutters along my spine. "It's hard to puzzle through everything."

He reaches for my hands with a small smile. "No plan on file for taking down a god, eh?"

Fuck. That is what we're attempting, isn't it? How ambitious of us. How arrogant. 

How very like the Devil himself, to even consider the chance we might succeed.

I look up into Julian's eyes, his plagued sclera vibrant next to his scarlet cravat. Searching them, though, I don't find the fear I expected. Trepidation, yes, and concern. But no fear.

He raises our joined hands to kiss my knuckles, his breath warm on my skin. "I'm the last person you should listen to when it comes to thinking things through, my dear." His laughter is even warmer. "But do you know? Even in the midst of all this, I believe in us."

The Star did her job, then. Julian isn't the type to back down from a challenge, and her guidance pointed him right at the biggest of them all.

For a moment, I hate her for it.

"You do?"

"I do. And I'm just as surprised by that as you are."

I don't know that 'surprised' is the right word, but there's a definite conviction in him. Whether it's rooted in the certainty that we'll win or the denial that we won't, I can't say. Even in passing, I shy away from the idea of losing him so soon. I wouldn't make it through that unscathed; I probably wouldn't make it through that at all. He means too much to me.

Smiling wryly, I study the corded tendons on the back of his branded hand. "I guess I feel like I'm not the right person to spearhead this. I never wanted… I never counted 'delusions of grandeur' among my faults, y'know?"

"No, no, that's never been a foible of mine, either." He cocks his head and chuckles to himself. "But, ah — and this is just a thought, mind you — but what if that's what's needed? A counter-balance, so to say, to the Devil poking his nose where it doesn't belong. From what the Star was telling us, she thinks the best way to go about this is not to turn against him ourselves, but to redirect his own power. Is that what you got out of it?"

I… I hadn't considered that. Thinking back over her advice, though, it makes sense. Strength from within, she said. I took that to mean relying on my own magic, but what if I was wrong?

"It's the same in medicine, you know," Julian continues, like he hadn't just asked me a question. "Work with the body, not against it. Half the remedies I know merely encourage more focused healing. We're remarkably resilient, given the proper time and attention, so I find it best to let nature do the heavy lifting and— why are you looking at me like that?"

I'm looking at him like that because he's a fucking genius. Who better to face the Devil than the Devil himself? What sleeker way to turn this around than from within? It's brilliant.

"Pretty sure you just saved the world, Juley."

"W-what?"

"I'm serious. There's no way I, or you, or both of us together, or even everyone we know combined could match the Devil's magic. Like you said, he's a god. More or less. But no one knows you like you know yourself, right?" The more I talk, the stronger I feel. "The Devil is the personification of envy and temptation. He wants what he doesn't have. If we find an in, we could use that against him."

The answer comes to me in a flash of gold and a gasp.

"Lucio."

"Lucio?"

"It'd be a hell of a lot easier to use the power the Devil gave Lucio, power from his own reserves, to take him down than whatever other magic we could bring in. Refocus all the energy it took to give him a body? It would still be a lot of work, but…?"

"Yes, yes, I see!" Julian drops my hands and begins to pace, kicking up snow with every step. "Whatever he may claim, the Devil put a lot of faith in Lucio's success, didn't he? Must not know our dear former count very well, to do that. The man folds under pressure like a bad hand of cards."

Within me, hope rises. "I think we've got something here. The Devil's too confident. He's taunting his own hubris."

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Isn't that right, darling? It's all over the history books."

I can call up several stories in that vein right away. That in itself is encouraging; after all, myth is made of the same stuff as magic, in the end. Julian and I beam at each other, swept up in a current of confidence. There's a long way to go, but at least, maybe, we've found a road to follow.

Before I can give him the hug he deserves, Julian scoops me into his arms and twirls. But my gown wraps around his legs and all too abruptly we come to a stop as the satin binds his knees. He stumbles and we fall together, laughing, into a snowdrift.

"Oh, Reyja," he sighs happily, cupping my cheek.

I cover his hand with my own.

"I love you."

The forest stops. What did he just say?

Julian blinks, startled by his own admission. But his gaze melts as it meets mine and he laughs again, giddy and soft. "I've been meaning to tell you that for so long," he murmurs. "I- I tried, before. A few times, actually, since I came back from my little chat with the Hanged Man. Ha, and I wanted to even earlier than that. Oh, I love you so much, my darling. I'll never be able to say it enough."

I knew from the moment his lips first touched mine that I was in love. I knew I'd been searching for him my whole life. Both of my lives, in fact. Love seems like too small a word for the bond we share, but it's the closest one I can find. "I love you too, Julian. I…"

Emotion takes hold of me, flooding my heart with the kind of joy I'd relegated to fiction, to fantasy. To people who weren't me. It rises higher and higher until the waves lap at my eyes and spill over, drawing tracks down my cheeks.

He curls around me, holding me as tight as he can. If we didn't have work to do, I would stay cuddled against his broad chest forever. I love him. I love him beyond description, almost more than I can comprehend. I whisper my love to his breastbone, nuzzle it into the notch in his clavicle, press it to his throat. We intertwine our legs, two bodies so close we may as well be one. Kisses fall like snowflakes over my neck, my hair, my face.

I love him. And he loves me. It took a handful of miracles for us to get here, but we made it. How dare the Devil try to take this from us. How dare anyone threaten our happiness. There are just as many stories about fighting for love as those that feature the downfall of arrogant tyrants, and I understand now. If those ancient warriors felt even a speck of this, this all-consuming connection we forged, I know why they leveled cities, carved their way through armies, sailed into dangerous waters. I would too, and more, for Julian Devorak.

I love him.

"There's a very good chance the Devil killed us after all, I think." Julian's voice is more sensation than sound, molded to his chest as I am. "Surely this is some sort of heaven, to have you in my arms."

I bury my laugh in the crook of his arm. "If we're dead, at least we died together. I suppose the other times were just practice runs so we could get this one right."

"For an eternity with you, my dearest, I would die a thousand deaths."

"Would you live a thousand lives too?"

"Anything. And my soul would find yours in every one of them."

"I love you." Now that we've said it, I don't want to stop.

Julian kisses me, deep and tongue-heavy. I wish I didn't need to breathe.

I have no memories of safety or contentment, belonging or being chosen, but there's been a hunger in my skin for a love like this. It swirled through my dreams. It called to me from unreachable heights. It danced on the edges of my vision whenever I closed my eyes.

And I feel safe now. Content. I belong with Julian. He chose me and I chose him. Whatever we have to face, be they demons of our own pasts or archetypal villains from worlds beyond, we'll do it together. I'm not known for my optimism, but I believe this. Win or lose, succeed or fail, we will have each other.

"I love you," I repeat, my lips against his.

"I love you."

Thank god for the strange flow of time in these realms. I think we'll be here a while. 


End file.
